


The Things We Often Run From

by cecilia095



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know... If I had to get a flat tire on the side of some road in what I think is Utah with anyone, I'm really glad it's you four."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Often Run From

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something different from anything I've ever written before, and I couldn't stop thinking about: ROAD TRIP. ROAD TRIP. ROAD TRIP.
> 
> My Spring semester starts in a few days, and I know I won't have nearly as much time to write, so I wanted to write something kind of epic before I have hardly any time to write at all. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fic, and as always, thank you SO much to ALL OF YOU who take the time to read my work. It means a lot to me that you do. <3

_Los Angeles, California, The Loft_  
  
\---  
  
"So we're really doing this thing, huh?" Schmidt asks, and when everyone just kind of nods, he says, "Fine, but so help me God, if any of you make a mess in my car -"  
  
"I don't get why we don't all just fly," Jess says, wrinkling her nose. "Coach and May won't care how we show up."  
  
"I thought you were into this, Jess!" Nick says, sliding a hand onto the small of her back. "C'mon, road trips are kind of fun, no?"

Jess just shrugs and says, "Eh."

"You love road trips! Remember the one we took after senior year?", asks Cece, and Jess is all: "Ugh,  _do_ I? You had sex with that sophomore in the backseat of my dad's station wagon and I cried for three hours straight on a beach in the middle of nowhere because I forgot my beef jerky at home. Worst. Day. Ever."

"Well, no one will be having sex in the backseat of  _my_ baby," Schmidt says. "And no beef jerky either. Nick already smells enough like week-old beef jerky. We don't need the actual thing."

Nick pumps a fist in the air and says, "Yeah!"

Winston holds a hand up and asks, "Wait, can Furguson come?"

Schmidt snickers. "I'd rather have beef jerky flavored air fresheners planted all over the car. No. Find a cat-sitter, and find one _fast_."

Jess huffs and pushes her bangs out of her face, and then she says, "Well, I guess I'm packing for a two-week-long road trip to New York, huh?"

—

_Los Angeles, California, The Road_

_\---_

They head out at 6 A.M., and the first one to drive is Winston, because he's used to being up at all kinds of crazy hours for work, and strangely, he's the only one who's not grumpy right now.

He stops at a deli and gets everyone bagels, but when he gets back to the car, Nick's passed out underneath three blankets in the back all by himself, and Cece's knocked out on an also-knocked-out Schmidt in the middle row. He just shrugs and turns to a wide-awake Jess on his passenger side, handing her the bag full of bagels.

"Knock yourself out," he jokes.

"Extra cream cheese?" she asks.

Winston twists the keys in the ignition and starts the car up. "Duh. You comfy, J?"

Jess leans back in her seat and lifts her bagel out of the paper wrapping. "I still hate road trips," she says with a laugh.

"I know, but how often do your friends have babies?" he asks, and Jess scrunches her nose up and lifts her bagel away from her mouth. "See?"

"I know, it's a big moment for Coach and May and for us, as their friends, but the baby wouldn't have cared if we flew in."

Winston sighs and turns out of the parking lot of the deli. "Have you texted him?"

"This morning. She's not dilated enough yet, and even if she were, it could still be days."

"Luckily this road trip takes about six," he says, both of his hands tapping on the wheel.

" _Ughhh_."

—

Winston makes it two hours before he stops at some sketchy-looking gas station for a pack of gum, a Snapple, and a very overdue pee-break.

Jess hops out of the car to stretch, and then she opens the back door and yells, "Cece! Schmidt! Nick!  _Up_!"

Groggily, the three of them wake up and slide out of the car, and then Nick asks, "Oooh, does this gas station sell donuts?"

"He  _would_ eat gas station donuts with no problem," says Cece, rolling her eyes and following Winston to the bathroom.

Jess turns to Schmidt and huffs. "Do you need to pee, Schmidt?"

" _Do I need to pee_?" He laughs. "Thanks, Mom, but I'm good."

"You're holding it because you think gas station bathrooms are gross, right?" Jess asks, and Schmidt just tugs down on his lip and says, "How'd you know?"

"I know everything. I'm your Mom, remember?"

"Yeah, you kind of are. Damn it. Speaking of, did you pack my kale chips, mom?"

Jess lowers her glasses and shakes her head. "That was  _my_ job? Why couldn't Cece have done it? Or, I don't know,  _you_?"

"I was too busy making sure my outfits were planned accordingly," he says, and he's  _serious_ , and why isn't she used to this by now? She's been living with Schmidt for  _how long_? 

"We're sleeping in a  _car_ for two weeks," Jess reminds him, and  _ew_ , they're sleeping in a car for the next twelve days because they're too broke and cheap to pay for crappy Best Westerns along the way.

"And I'll be better-looking than all of you while doing it," Schmidt says with a snicker. "Now quick, find me an empty bottle at this gas station so I can pee in it later."

"You'd rather pee in a  _bottle_ than just squat in there?" Jess says, narrowing her eyes and pointing to the door Cece's coming out of. "She just did it."

"Cece's tougher than I am," Schmidt says of his fiancée, and when she goes to sleepily wrap an arm around him he jumps up and yells, "Get off of me! Sorry, it's just - You peed in  _there_."

Winston joins the rest of them and laughs, and then he says, "Yeah, well I  _pooped_ , and I'm fine."

Jess wrinkles her nose. "More than we needed to know, but - Wait. Where's Nick?"

Nick walks out to the car with a box full of donuts and sighs. "He's right here, and he's good on food for the next..." He pauses and lifts up the donut box, getting a peek. "Four hours, probably. It's just twelve donuts."

"You're  _disgusting_."

"You're disgusting, Schmidt. You'd rather piss in a bottle than in a gas station bathroom. I hope you miss and it goes all over your backseat."

—

Jess takes the wheel now, because the route is kind of scenic and she likes being the driver so she can just focus on the road. Winston's napping in the back row, and Cece and Schmidt are still in the middle, and Nick is up front with her, eating a Boston Creme donut and turning up the radio even though Jess is all: "Really? This song?"

They're two-and-a-half hours out of L.A. now, and there's a shit-ton more hours to go - ( _shit-ton_ meaning Jess wants to look at the GPS but also won't look at the GPS because it'll say, 'One Million Hours Until You Reach New York' and she doesn't feel like crying about the length of their road trip right now).

"Hey Jess," Nick says after a few minutes.

Her eyes are glued to the road, both hands gripping the top of the wheel. "Hey Nick."

"Do you want a donut? I've got like, nine-and-a-half left."

She shakes her head. "I'll pass. Go to sleep or something. We don't have to switch for another two hours."

"I'd rather stay up. So... Whatcha thinking about?"

"Um." Jess swallows. "Driving?"

"Just driving?"

Jess can feel Nick's eyes on her, and she reaches a hand out to turn the radio down. "What else would I be thinking about, Nick?"

"Yeah, no, I don't know," he says. "Just trying to make conversation. You, uh, you look nice."

"I'm in  _pajamas_. And not even a pajama set. This shirt is Winston's, I think, and these pants are from High School Jazz Ensemble."

Nick shrugs and sets his box of donuts on the floor by his feet. "I can't believe Coach is gonna be a  _dad_. That son of a bitch can't raise a  _kid_."

"Well, May thought he could, so..."

"I don't know, it's just like..." Nick pauses, and he's whispering now. He looks to Jess, than behind him to Cece and Schmidt and Winston. "Everyone's growing up, you know? They're getting married in a month," he says, nodding to a still-sleeping Cece and Schmidt, "and he's a cop - and like, actually  _good_ _at it_."

Jess loosens her grip on the wheel and turns to Nick for a split second, her tongue between her teeth. "Yeah, well, it happens."

—

_Not Los Angeles, California, Still The Road_

\---

Nick's driving now, and he's trying to get them to Arizona by 6 o'clock tonight, and there's  _no way_ , because he drives like a  _grandma_ and everyone's yelling at him about it.

"If I get pulled over, we're all screwed. I forgot to renew my license."

"Of course you did," Cece says in annoyance. "Pull over. I'll get us to Arizona  _way_ before six because  _I_ don't drive like I'm escaping the nursing home on a golf cart."

"I'm not pulling over, I'm getting us to Arizona, and we're stopping at the Grand Canyon because I've always wanted to take a picture in front of the Grand Canyon."

"Um, we're not stopping," says Jess. "We can stop to eat, and to pee, and to  _maybe_ sleep, but not to pose in front of a bunch of rocks."

Nick snickers and takes his hands off of the wheel, throwing them up. "I'm offended, Jessica. Now you don't get to be in my Grand Canyon picture, and  _ooh_ , it's gonna be good."

"I'm sure," she says sarcastically, and then she says, "If we flew, we'd be there already."

"Well we didn't, Jess, and now we're here, -" He pauses to sniff the air, and then turns around to face Cece and Schmidt. "Which one of you is eating my donuts?"

With powder-covered mouths, Cece and Schmidt both shrug. 

" _Someone_ wouldn't stop for dinner," Cece says with narrowed eyes, swiping at her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt. "I said, ' _There's a Denny's, Nick_!', and you said, ' _I don't know a 'Denny', Cece_!', and now we're  _starving_." 

Winston stirs from the backseat and sits upright, three throw blankets still stretched across his body. "Wait, you drove past a Denny's? Go back!"

"I'm not going back, Winston, I'm going to the Grand Canyon."

Jess rolls her eyes and smacks Nick on the shoulder. "He's not going to the Grand Canyon, Winston; he's pulling over at this gas station so we can eat dinner and relieve ourselves."

"Cece, get my bottle!" Schmidt says as Nick eases into the gas station lot.

"Not a chance, Schmidt," she says, and then she hops out of the car and tugs Schmidt with her.

Winston races into the convenience store and says, "They have taquitos, you guys!", and then Cece races in right after him, but not before making sure Schmidt loses the bottle and finds a bathroom.

Nick pulls a crumbled up twenty dollar bill from his pocket and fills the tank, and Jess leans up against the car as he does that.

"You really do drive  _so slow_ , Miller," she teases, and Nick looks up from pumping gas to smirk at her. "I don't know, maybe the Grand Canyon is worth seeing."

He closes the gas tank and shoves his hands in his pockets, leaning up against the car next to her. "I just figured stopping somewhere other than disgusting gas station bathrooms could make this trip a little better," he says, and Jess nods. "Are you having fun?"

"Am I having fun?" She laughs, and then she flicks Nick on the wrist. "No. You wouldn't even let me play my CD, dummy."

"Listening to Cotton Eyed Joe on loop gets me pumped," he says, and Jess makes a note to take his CD out of the player the second they get back in the car. 

—

_The Grand Canyon, Arizona, Not 6 O'Clock P.M._

\---

"Well, you got us here," Jess says in almost disbelief, and she slams the passenger door shut. 

Winston stays behind for a second, because he's trying to connect his FaceTime to Aly - his kind-of, sort-of girlfriend; his definite work partner. "He actually got us to the Grand Canyon! It's late as hell, but he did it!" Winston says with wide eyes the second Aly's on the screen. "You wanna see?"

Cece and Schmidt hop out of the car and then lean up against it, and Schmidt says something about how they haven't touched in  _hours_ , and then they're sucking face against the Ford Flex like they've never been kissed before, and then there's hands, and moans, and, --

Nick wraps around to the other side of the car, and Jess follows, because she'd rather not look at the mess that is Cece and Schmidt making out like horny high schoolers.

"You don't look happy," Jess points out, and then when he asks how she can tell, she points to the way he's all hunched over, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. 

"I just drove like, 300 miles," Nick says, swallowing thickly. 

"I know," Jess says, and she shoves her hands in the pockets of her hoodie too. "You did good."

He smiles at the corners of his mouth. "Thanks. It's my turn to sleep next. You too. You haven't slept since... Well... All day."

"Duh. Who else would look after you kids?"

Nick laughs, his head titled back. "That's sadly true."

Jess takes a second and looks up to the sky, to all of the stars she can't see back in Los Angeles even though they're there, to how dark it is, to how  _rock_ can look so  _pretty_. She tugs down on her lip with her top teeth and then she smiles at Nick. "All of that stuff you said in the car before..."

"Which part? I said  _a lot_. I think I talked about an episode of  _Shark Tank_  for like, forty-five minutes, and you  _let me_."

She almost doesn't realize she's taking Nick's hand, but she does; she takes his hand and swings it in hers and lets her thumb rub up against his knuckles. "Everyone's growing up and it's  _scary_ ," she says. 

"Oh. That. Yeah. Super scary."

"Are you ever scared you're... you know...  _not_?"

"Um, are you?"

Jess clears her throat and looks on to Winston on FaceTime, lifting up the phone higher than he can reach so that Aly can see the Grand Canyon in all of its nighttime glory, and then to Cece and Schmidt who are kind of just cuddled up against the car looking up at the stars, and then back to Nick, who's just staring down at her.

"All the time."

—

_460 Miles Later, Utah, The Car_

\---

They pulled over on the side of the road to sleep after seeing the Grand Canyon, and even though it put a delay to their route, they had to because Jess's eyes were rolling back into her head, and Nick forgot which one was 'brake' and which one was 'gas', and no one else wanted to drive either, so they just... Pulled over on the side of the road in one of the prettiest places any of them had ever seen and slept there.

Nick slept in the front, the seat leaned back, using two of his hoodies as a blanket. Jess took the middle row with Winston, the both of them Certified Blanket Hogs, wrestling the throw blanket back and forth for hours. Cece and Schmidt slept in the back row, the both of them on one tiny pillow with one tiny blanket over them. 

Now they're nearing Utah, and they only stopped twice to pee and get something to eat, and Winston's driving and he's a lot faster than Nick.

They're on the UT 95-N when Jess feels a  _thump_ , and she lifts herself up and shakes Nick and Schmidt awake in the middle row, and she says, "Did you guys feel that?"

Cece and Winston are both yelling from the front, and no one knows what time it is or how long they've been driving, but there's that  _thump_ again, and -- Shit.

"Did we just..."

"Flat tire..."

"Oh crap. Winnie messed up."

—

It's dark out, but no one's paying attention to exactly what time it is because they're all trying to get enough signal to call someone to come and help them, and then Nick pockets his phone and says, "Wait! I can change a tire."

"Why didn't you  _say something_?" Cece says, and she kicks him in the shin.

"I deserved that," he says with a groan, and then he asks, "Schmidt, do you have a spare?"

"Nicholas, do I look like I've ever changed a tire in my life?" It's a serious question, and all four of Schmidt's friends have to take a second before simultaneously saying: "No." 

Nick rolls his eyes and walks over to the trunk, tugging it open and digging for a spare. "And... Yes! Everything we need is here. The spare, the jack..."

"So just... change it!" Schmidt yells, and Nick yells back, "No, I'm just gonna stand here and look at the parts, Schmidty! What do you think I'm doing, you jackass?"

Jess rubs her index finger over her temples and takes a breath, taking a seat on the grass at the side of the road. Cece and Schmidt sit down next to her.

"Hey," she says. "We should've flown."

Cece throws an arm around Jess's shoulder and says, "I know."

"Listen, I'm all for being sad about choosing a six-day road trip over a five-hour flight, but can we just appreciate the fact that Nicholas is  _doing something_?" Schmidt asks, proudly pointing to his best friend whose loosening the nuts on the hubcap. 

Jess bites down on her lip. "Y-Yeah, I guess we can."

—

It takes Nick  _forever_ , but he changes the tire and tucks away the flat one in the trunk, and then everyone else piles the luggage that's sitting on the side of the highway back into the trunk, and then Nick claps his hands together and says, "I need a break."

"Understandable," says Winston. "We still have the cooler."

"No, you guys really brought the cooler?" Jess asks, and she shakes her head in annoyance. "Those beers are probably flatter than my breasts before I knew what 'stuffing' was."

Nick shrugs. "Beer's beer, so..."

Everyone agrees they need a break, no driving, no road trip, so they each crack open a beer on the side of the road somewhere close to Utah, just like that.

Schmidt and Winston clink their bottles together and yell, "To Nick!", and Schmidt adds, "Who knew he was so talented? I just - I think I need a minute." 

"I changed a tire, man. I didn't like, cure cancer."

"You cured my car's cancer, Nick. You saved her."

"You're an idiot, Schmidt," Nick says, and then he takes a long swig of beer and wrinkles his nose in disgust. "Whew. Jess, you were right. Flatter than your breasts before you stuffed."

"Told you!" Jess takes a sip of her beer anyway, making the same face Nick did just seconds before. "You know... If I had to get a flat tire on the side of some road in what I think is Utah with anyone, I'm really glad it's you four."

The five of them clink their bottles together. 

"I love you guys," Jess says, and she means it - she means it all the time, she's not an 'I Love You' Throw-Arounder, but she especially means it right now.

"We love you too, obviously," Nick says back, and the corners of his lips curl.

—

_Still Utah, Almost Colorado_

\---

Coach texts, and May is only four centimeters dilated and she's yelling at him because nothing's working and this baby won't come out and he doesn't know what to do. When Jess calls him he says, "Should've flown, Jebecca", and she's like, " _I know_!"

—

"My bladder can't do it, you guys. Where's my bottle?"

Cece rolls her eyes and takes one hand off of the wheel, placing it onto Schmidt's kneecap. "In some ugly gas station garbage back in California."

"You didn't."

"I  _told_ you, babe. I'll pull over in thirty."

"Thirty  _minutes_?"

"Well, obviously..."

"Here, man!" says Winston, and he tosses an empty Snapple bottle to Schmidt from the middle row. "Saved it for you."

Through gritted teeth, Cece says, " _Winston_."

"Just let the man have his bottle, Cece."

"Fine, but lift your leg when you pee. I'm the one you're going to whine to for the next month if it dribbles all over your seats."

—

They stop for lunch at a place that's like a  _Denny's_ , but it's better because it's not  _Denny's_ and these eggs might taste even greater than Jess's Special Hangover Eggs. 

Nick leaves the waitress a twenty-dollar tip, 'just because', and everyone's impressed. Especially Jess. He slaps the bill down on the table and slides it under the ketchup bottle and then says, "What?" when he catches Jess smile at him.

"I don't know. It's nice to see you doing something nice just because you feel like it."

"If you're gonna keep smiling at me like that, I'll take it back," he says, and he reaches for the twenty-dollar bill underneath the ketchup bottle.

Jess clears her throat and throws her hands up in surrender. "Fine! I'll stop acknowledging your likable qualities," she says, rolling her eyes.

"Well, hey, don't do that!"

—

There's this rest stop just before Colorado, and they all desperately need to change and half-ass-shower, because Jess is so hot her shirt is sticking to her and Schmidt's been wearing the same clothes for sixteen hours and he's about to cry about it.

Jess changes into this sundress Nick whistles at her about, and she slaps him on the arm as they're checking out at the gift shop. "Don't do that. You're annoying."

Nick grabs three Red Bulls and a pack of Twinkies off of the counter and winks at her. "Whatever you say, Jessica."

—

_Colorado_

\---

Everyone's overly-tired, and it's the deepest they've talked all trip - Usually it's recapping ridiculous  _American Idol_ auditions, or talking about ways to prank people in elevators, or ' _Reason Number Four Hundred Why Schmidt Shouldn't Pee In A Bottle: Because He Just Shouldn't_ '.

Nick sort of eases his grip on the wheel and clears his throat, and then he says, "Everyone's  _doing stuff_ , and all I can do is change a damn tire."

"And so graciously, might I add," says Schmidt, reaching over and patting Nick on the shoulder.

"Wait, wait, ' _doing stuff_ '?" Cece questions, and then Winston adds, "Like what, dude? I can't even successfully cook a waffle in the toaster. I  _still_ can't find the right temperature. If anyone knows, please, don't hesitate to share."

"Okay, maybe you suck at cooking breakfast foods, but you're in love, right?"

Winston kind of shrugs, and then he says, "Well... Wait... None of you are on the phone with her or something right now, right?"

Jess laughs. "So you  _are_ in love with Aly. I knew it!"

"Dude, yes. I roamed around the Grand Canyon in the night - which, I am deathly terrified of, B-T-W, - just to find a signal to show it to her."

Cece wrinkles her nose, and then so does Jess, and they both go, "Awwwww".

"See?" says Nick. "You have Aly, and Schmidt and Cece, you guys  _obviously_ have each other, because I can hear it through our very thin walls every damn night, - and hey, when are you moving out, by the way? No rush."

Everyone stays quiet, and it feels like he drives a few more miles before Nick says, "I don't know. Sometimes I look at you guys - at all of you - and I just don't think I'll ever  _get there_."

"Whoa, wait," Jess interrupts, and she doesn't notice she puts a hand on Nick's knee before it's already resting there. "Who says I'm there? I'm not  _there_. My last relationship was three weeks long and it ended with a text that said, 'Sorry dude, not feeling it', and I wasn't even the one who called him 'dude' - it was him, he called me 'dude'."

"Yeah, well, you have nothing to worry about because you're  _Jess_ ," Nick says like that means something. She raises an eyebrow at him, and Cece and Schmidt and Winston sort of just stay quiet. "You're someone people want to be with."

"Oh yeah? Name one."

Nick taps his hands nervously on the wheel and says, "Well... Uh..."

"See? You can't."

—

They take the scenic route, because Jess makes them, and Trail Ridge Road is  _beautiful_ and -- _Do you really have to stop the car to take a picture every three minutes, Jess?_

They near Nebraska and then they stop the car on the side of the highway - risky, but it makes them all feel dangerous and wild and twenty-something again, and they kind of love it. Winston's asleep before they even pull over, and Cece climbs over the front seat and into the middle, plopping down next to Schmidt and peppering kisses all over his face as if they haven't been in the same car all day.

"Whoa, whoa, I'm still right here!" Nick says, wiggling off of the seat and out of the car. 

Jess climbs out of the driver's seat and shuts the door behind her, and then she huffs and leans up against the front of the car.

"It feels like we've been driving for a  _month_ ," she says, pushing her bangs out of her face.

Nick's throwing on a hoodie, zippering it up all the way, and he says, "Yeah, a month-and-a-half, maybe. They all drive me crazy."

"Why? Today wasn't too bad. I mean, Schmidt making us listen to his audiobooks for three hours wasn't exactly a highlight, but it could've been worse."

He laughs, and then he rests a hand on the small of Jess's back. "Do you wanna take a walk?"

"Um." She widens her eyes. "We're on a strange highway in the middle of the evening, so no, pass."

"We won't go far," he promises, and then he says, "C'mon, don't be a baby, Jess."

"A 'Safe Civilian' is what I like to call it, Nick, not a  _baby_."

"We won't go far," he repeats, and then he slips his hand in hers and she lets him do it.

—

They walk a few hundred feet past the car before Jess wants to turn around.

"Alright, alright, you win Jess. I'm kind of scared, too," Nick confesses.

She's holding onto his hand for dear life, but only because they're in unfamiliar territory and it's dark and the rest of her friends are fast asleep in a Ford Flex on the side of Highway 34.

Nick laughs at that, at the grip Jess has got on him, at the way she blinks like a madwoman when she's scared. "You're not good at telling people what you want, you know," he says before they turn around.

"What?" She lets go of his hands to put both of her hands dramatically on her hips, and then she says, "Yes I am, Nick!  _You're_ -", and she pauses, pokes his middle, "- not good at telling people what you want."

"If I said 'I want you' to you right now - hypothetically, of course -, what would you say back to me?"

"'Shut up, go to bed, don't drink the stale beer'. Hypothetically."

"Exactly."

—

_Colorado-Nebraska Border_

\---

Nick plays  _Come On Eileen_ more times than they can all count, and eventually Jess reaches for the radio and turns it off. "It's not even a good song."

"You're not even a good song," he says, sticking his tongue out at her. "Have you heard from Coach?"

Cece says, "I have. Still nothing. How long does it take to push a kid out of your vagina?"

"Apparently damn near a week," says Winston. "That baby's waiting for us."

"Yeah, every time Nick drives, she crawls a little farther back up into May's uterus because she knows how slow he is," Schmidt adds.

"Ha-ha, very funny, Schmidt. We get it, I drive like your Great Aunt Frieda. I'm being  _safe_."

"You're being  _slow_ ," Schmidt says, "and I kind of like it. I mean, look at all of this Quality Time we're getting together, you guys. I'm even starting to like Winston a lot now."

—

They stop at this little rest stop and everyone changes and gets something to eat, and Nick gets everyone a couple of beers for later because the cooler failed them and the beers they do have are beyond flat.

Winston stays behind to FaceTime Aly in the car, and when everyone gets back, Jess leans into the phone and says, "You should've came with! You could've ticketed Nick for driving like a blinded ninety-year-old."

"I  _am_ blind, so that's  _offensive_ , Jessica," he says, situating himself at the wheel.

Aly laughs through the phone and says, "I don't think you'd want me there. I'm pretty high maintenance. Like, I'd give Schmidt a run for his money. I'd do three wardrobe changes a day."

"I do  _four_ ," says Schmidt, "so  _ha_."

"Look, I'm gonna - I'm gonna go finish talking to Aly outside," Winston says, and then he climbs out of the backseat and walks away from the car and Jess pouts her lips and goes, "Aww. I kind of like Not-Single-Winston."

"How about Not-Single-Jess?" Schmidt asks, and Cece smacks him on the arm. "Is she making an appearance anytime soon?"

Jess rolls her eyes and pretends she doesn't see Nick look at her the way he's looking at her through the rear-view mirror.

—

Nick and Cece switch and she drives them into Nebraska because she's wired and he's exhausted and just wants to lay down in the back. 

Winston is in the front with Cece, and Schmidt is hogging the middle row - (and four throw blankets, as if two hoodies is going to cover up Jess and Nick).

Jess leans back in her seat and fidgets with the seatbelt until she's comfortable, and Nick is watching her from the corner of his eye and laughing. "Here, let me - Let me help, Jess," he says, and then he unclips her seatbelt and tells her to lean back. "I got you."

"I don't need you to 'get me'," she says, but she starts to lean back anyway, right into Nick.

"Well, I got you anyway, so..."

Jess feels her eyelids get heavy and Nick balls up one of his hoodies to use as a pillow, placing it right in between his lap and the back of Jess's head. Instinctively, one of his arms falls across her middle, but he doesn't mean for it to. 

—

Jess wakes up at some gas station in Nebraska, and Nick's arm is still draped around her. She caresses it with her hand for a second, and then forces herself to sit up. "Nick," she whispers, "your arm."

He laughs and pulls it off of her. "Right."

—

They're in some diner in the middle of Nebraska and everyone orders French toast even though they have no idea what time it is. 

Winston pulls his vibrating phone out of his pocket and says, "Shh! It's Coach. Hey, Coach, what's up my man?"

"Do you think we missed the baby?" Nick whispers.

Schmidt widens his eyes and drops his fork. "W-What? She'll still be there when we get there, Nick."

Nick rewords himself. "O-Oh, I just meant - I meant - You know, did she like, come out already?" 

Cece's lips quiver. "Umm, did you plan on watching that, or...?"

"I mean, if Coach asked me to, yeah," Nick says, digging his fork into his French toast and shoving a huge piece into his mouth.

Winston says, "Alright man, we'll be there", and then puts his phone down on the table. "Well, May's still not in labor, and Coach is still crying like a damn baby."

" _Coach_ is crying?" Jess asks, laughing a little bit. "Isn't it supposed to be hurting May?"

"Oh, it is," Winston says, "but for every hour there's no baby coming out of her, she takes it out on Coach. With words. He's sensitive."

"That's gonna be you guys in a few years," Nick points out, nodding over to Schmidt and Cece. 

"Or not," Cece says lowly, her fork pausing halfway to her mouth. 

Schmidt just tilts his head at his fiancée, and she stands up from the booth. "I-I have to use the bathroom," she says, but her voice is shaky and Jess whispers, "That's when you know she's about to cry. Go get her, Schmidt."

Schmidt's hesitant at first, because every time he watches Cece start to cry,  _he_ cries even harder, like a little bitch, without fail. It's just a thing, and maybe it's something Five-Years-Ago-Schmidt would've never done, but whatever. It's  _Cece_.

Cece's washing her hands in the bathroom when Schmidt swings open the door, and she jumps a little bit.

"Did I scare you?"

She sniffles and says, "Kind of. Hand me a paper towel."

Schmidt walks over to the paper towel dispenser and crouches down, looking inside of it with a shrug. "Fresh out. Stupid diner. I'm giving them two-stars on Yelp. My French toast was _disgustingly_  soggy."

"Yeah, let's do that," Cece says with a laugh, and then she walks over to Schmidt, both of her wet hands out in front of her.

"Here Ceec, use - use my shirt," he says, and  _God_ , he's actually letting someone wipe their hands on his Calvin Klein undershirt. Cece obliges, and Schmidt wrinkles his nose when he feels the wetness seep through the bottom of his shirt and onto his middle, and then she leans into him. 

"I hate when people talk about kids."

Schmidt bites the inside of his cheek. "I've noticed."

"It's just - I've never told you this before because it's a pretty big deal breaker and I didn't want you to change your mind about marrying me," she says, and now she's crying, and Schmidt's trying not to tear up himself.

"I wouldn't. I already reserved a Chocolate Fountain."

" _Schmidt_."

"Cece, nothing you could say to me in this bathroom right now is gonna stop me from wanting to marry you."

She swipes at the tears underneath her eyes, and then she says, "I don't know how capable I am of actually - of actually having a kid."

He swallows thickly and kind of just lets her stand in the middle of a crappy diner bathroom and cry to him about it. After a minute, he asks, "Do you know for like, one-hundred percent sure?", and she just shakes her head and says, "Well, no, but the test -"

Schmidt remembers the test. Three years ago, Jess freaked out over how many baby-making years she had left, but it turned out she was an Egg Queen and could probably make babies until she was sixty and greying. Cece took the test too, but no one said anything about her results, and now Schmidt knows why.

"I'm marrying you for you, Cecelia," he says, and Cece's still crying. "If we don't raise a screaming, crying, pooping kid who's half me and half you, it's not the end of the world."

—

_Somewhere In Iowa_

\---

They run out of gas at 7 P.M., and  _God_ , can anything bad happen to them during the _daytime_? 

The car stalls, and then Schmidt says, "Good going, Winston!", as if there aren't four other people in the car who could've remembered to make a stop for gas.

"Now what are we gonna do? Call up our good friends of Iowa and have them bring us gas? Oh wait, we can't, because  _no one lives in Iowa_!" 

Nick goes, "Hold on, I might know a guy", and he pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts dialing.

"I bet it's a drug dealer," Schmidt whispers, and everyone rolls their eyes at him. "What? Like Nick doesn't know his share of drug dealers?"

Nick hangs up his phone a few seconds later and says, "Well, I tried, but the guy I  _did_ know in Iowa died, so..."

"Oh my God,  _what_?" Jess widens her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, no, he wasn't my  _friend_ , just a drug dealer I knew from my Syracuse days."

"I told you!" Schmidt yells, and no one cares, because they're all, again, rolling their eyes at him.

—

It's 9:30 now, and their car is just on the side of the road, just  _there_ , and God, does anyone actually live in Iowa? No one's pulled over to help them, and Jess is pacing in circles on the grass going, "We should've flown, we should've flown, we should've flown."

It's starting to get chilly, and they can't turn on the car because, well,  _no gas_ , and Nick tells Jess to go in the car. "You can't even go on your 'We Should've Flown' rant without your teeth chattering," he says, and his hand skims the small of her back. "Go in the car. Now."

"No one else is in the car!", she argues, and Nick says, "Well, no one else is three seconds away from crying."

Schmidt raises his hand. "Not true. I'm sad because Winston sucks and I'm sad because I'm about to pee my pants."

"Hey, I don't suck,  _you_ suck!"

"Just pee on the grass, Schmidt."

Schmidt turns to Cece and shakes his head. "I can't expose myself right now. It's dark and I'm scared."

"And yet you were all too happy about peeing in a bottle," she says, rolling her eyes. "I love you, but I don't get you sometimes."

Jess grunts and goes in the car, because her eyelids are heavy and maybe if she goes to sleep she'll wake up in New York. (Ha. Ha.)

Nick says, "Do you need blankets?", and even though she doesn't answer him he opens the trunk up and grabs her two throw blankets anyway. He opens the backdoor and drapes them across Jess, and then he says, "I'm gonna fix this."

Jess laughs. "Sure you are, Miller."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"You're not exactly someone who... I don't know...  _fixes things_."

He closes the car door behind him and climbs into the backseat with Jess, and then he huffs and runs a hand through his hair. "Is this about the 'no gas' thing?"

Jess shakes her head and lifts the blankets up over her, stretching them up to her chin. "I just know how capable you are, and sometimes you don't see it, and that bothers me."

"Well, let that be my problem," Nick says, biting down on his bottom lip. 

Jess starts to cry then, and Nick freaks out, inching into her and giving her this awkward, one-armed, you're-laying-down-and-I'm-sitting-up hug. 

"Come on, shh, we're gonna get to New York, Jess."

"I don't even care about New York right now, Nick."

"Then what  _do_ you care about, Jess?" he asks, and he pushes her bangs off of her forehead.

Sleepily, she says, "I don't know,  _you_.", and then she tugs him closer to her.

—

Winston (finally) gets a dude to stop for them, and by 10:30 P.M., the gas tank is full and they're headed toward Illinois. 

Schmidt's driving, and no one attempts to wake Jess and Nick up, and no one talks about how close their bodies are, either. 

"Do you guys mind if I play  _Spice Girls_?" Schmidt asks Cece and Winston.

"Um, yes," Cece says.

Winston shakes his head. "No. ' _Wannabe_ ' is my  _jam_!"

—

_Chicago, Illinois_

\---

"I can't believe we're in Chicago and you're not visiting your families," Jess says to both Nick and Winston when they're at a rest stop.

"Yeah, well, this trip is taking us long enough. If we stopped at Nick's place, Bonnie would make us stay for like, a week," Winston says.

"What can I say?" Nick shrugs. "She loves me too much."

Cece and Schmidt are in the car calling Coach, and Winston excuses himself because, "Yo! Are those Krispy Kreme donuts?", and then it's just Jess and Nick in the middle of this run-down rest stop.

"Hey, Jess," Nick says, as if he hasn't been standing next to her this whole time.

She does a little wave and says, "Hey, Nick."

"I know you think I'm mean for not seeing my Ma, but she'd literally extend our trip by a week, and I think you hate us all enough already."

Jess absentmindedly grabs a postcard from one of the racks and plays with it in her hands. "' _Welcome to Chicago_ '," she reads in a voice that isn't hers, and then she shakes her head. "Nick, at this point, nothing could make me hate you guys."

"Not even me?"

She shifts her eyes to the floor. "Not even you, Miller."

—

Everyone looks like a member of  _The Walking Dead_ by the time they stop for dinner. They're still in Illinois, almost Indiana, and Winston has to literally wrestle Jess out of the passenger side to get her to wake up.

"There's gotta be a Best Western somewhere," she says, tiredly rubbing at her eyelids. "I can't sleep in a car anymore, you guys."

"Really?" Schmidt emerges from the backseat, a pillow in one hand and a throw blanket in the other. "I'm the comfiest I've ever been in my entire life."

"You just made Cece and Nick share a _towel_ because you hogged all the blankets," Jess says with a snicker. "Obviously you're comfy."

"Cecelia, Nicholas, were you comfortable?"

"No."

"Not a chance."

They walk into the diner together, all in this sort of ten-legged stumble, and  _God_ , everyone is so sick of diner food. They're never eating at another diner again.

Everyone orders, and then Jess says, "Mine to-go, please", and they all just kind of look at her. "What? I won't get crumbs in your car, Schmidt."

"Umm." Nick raises his hand, and the waitress looks in his direction. "You can wrap those mozzarella sticks up too," he says.

Cece wiggles her eyebrows and nudges Schmidt on the arm, and then he whispers, " _Winston_ " across the table at Winston, who sort of just looks out of it. "Huh? What? What's going on?"

Schmidt nods his head over to Jess and Nick who stand up from the booth when the waitress says, "I'll have your to-go orders up by the front counter".

"'What's _going on_ '," Schmidt says, "is that they're totally boning."

Winston yawns and shakes his head. "Maybe they're tired."

"Or boning."

"Tired."

" _Boning_."

"Tire -"

" _Boning_."

"Okay, dude, I am too damn tired to banter with you. Where my cheese fries at?"

—

They don't even eat the food when they get back to the car.

Jess takes both of the styrofoam containers and throws them into the trunk, and then she and Nick fall into the backseat together.

At first, they just sort of sit there, under a pile of throw blankets and pillows and --  _Ow_ , was that a beer bottle? 

It takes Nick a second, but he says, "Jess", and then he says, "What are we doing?"

"I don't - I thought -"

"No, I know, we - I thought too -"

Jess sighs, and she lets her body fall into Nick's. She's playing with her hands, and Nick lifts the blankets up over the two of them. 

"Sometimes..." Jess says, and she's  _exhausted_. "Sometimes I wish that none of that bad stuff between us ever happened."

"Which part?" Nick asks, and he's actually unsure.

"Umm." Jess smacks her lips together, and she leans a little more into Nick. They're supposed to be pigging out on diner food right now, not cuddled up in the backseat of Schmidt's car talking about this. "I didn't want us to break up. Did you?"

"Who  _wants_ to break up? Who  _enjoys_ breaking up?"

"I know. It was the legitimate worst."

"Yeah, no, yeah, pretty - pretty bad time."

Nick looks at Jess for a second, really just  _looks_ at her, and then he kisses the top of her hair.

"What was that about?" she asks, and she's laughing a little bit.

"Sometimes I just... don't have a reason, Jess," he answers.

—

_Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania_

\---

They breeze through the three states leading up to New York, and by the time Jess realizes how fast they're going to be there, she gets kind of sad.

"I don't know," she says, "I kind of loved this."

—

Nick kisses Jess at a rest stop right before they reach Ohio. He tastes like that sleeve of Oreos he just ate in the backseat, but Jess doesn't care, she pulls him in closer and sucks on his top lip a little bit.

Everyone else is in the bathroom, and Jess and Nick are leaning up against the car, and it just  _happens_ \- he just kisses her without warning, without reason, one hand behind her neck and one hand on her waist. It's unplanned, and very messy, but that's  _them_ , she thinks, and then she kisses him back a little harder than he kissed her.

Cece comes out of the bathroom first, and Nick pulls himself off of Jess. Cece looks at Jess like she knows what just happened, but also like she's too drained to say anything, so she just climbs into the passenger seat and steals one of the pillows from the back, falling asleep before Schmidt and Winston are even back.

Nick says, "Sorry", and Jess says, "Why?", and then they climb into the backseat and don't talk about their kiss until Pennsylvania.

—

They go to a diner (yuck) once they reach Pennsylvania, and they're  _this close_ to New York, and Jess is sitting  _this close_ to Nick, and --

"We need to talk about what happened in Ohio," she says, and she nudges his arm so hard he spits out his eggs. "Sorry."

"No, you're right," he says once he's done choking on his breakfast. "I'm sorry I kissed you," he whispers, and he's glad his friends are all too busy talking about something else to pay attention.

"I don't want you to be sorry you kissed me, Nick, because I'm not sorry I kissed you, I just - Do you ever see us going anywhere again?"

He drops his fork and shrugs. "Like, on another road trip? No. Next time, we fly."

"You and me, dummy," Jess says, and she hits his shin with her foot. 

"Oh. Um." He thinks about it for a second, and then he says, "Well, don't you?"

"I asked you first, Miller."

"Fair point." 

"Well...?"

He takes a deep breath. "Jess, I always see you in my future."

—

_A Gas Station Somewhere In Pennsylvania_

\---

Jess and Winston are on the hood of the car while Nick pumps gas, and Cece and Schmidt are probably going at it in some gas station bathroom because they haven't had sex in days and they're, ' _Dying, just_ dying _'._

Nick huffs when he's done and says, "Can you believe we all made it without killing each other?"

"Hey," says Jess, wagging a finger, "we're not there  _yet_ , and Schmidt's music is starting to piss me off."

" _Starting to_?" Winston shakes his head. "I've been sick of him since Arizona."

Everyone's quiet, and then after a minute, Winston says, "So what's going on between you two, huh?"

Jess and Nick look at each other, and then at Winston, and then back at each other.

"Absolutely nothing," Jess lies, but it's Nick who's like, "Wait, no, why would you - We don't know, Winston."

"Well..." Winston taps his hand on the hood of the car. "I don't know much about love, but I do know that if you wanna be with somebody, you should."

"It's not that easy," says Jess.

"Why not?"

Jess has to think about it for a second, and then she kind of just purses her lips. "I... don't know."

"So figure it out," Winston says, and he's looking at the both of them more seriously than he's looked at them this entire trip, "and then just be with each other, because anything else is gonna make you guys miserable."

—

_New York (Finally)_

\---

May's water breaks about the same time they leave Pennsylvania, and Jess is all excited that they might not miss the birth, and Schmidt's all, "Ew, please, no, let's miss it, let's stall. I'll see the baby when she's all clean and cute, not Straight Outta Vagina."

They pull over at another gas station, because Schmidt (always) has to pee, and Winston hasn't spoken to Aly in a day. 

Cece and Jess and Nick stay in the car, and it's quiet until Cece goes, "Wait, did you two really suck face at that rest stop?"

They both look around the entire car, and they avoid looking at each other, and then Nick's the one who goes, "Yeah."

Cece shrugs. "I thought so. Are you two like, back together? Don't tell Schmidt until the ride back. He's gonna get all weirdly excited and pay zero attention to the baby."

Jess feels Nick's hand roam in her lap, and then he squeezes her knee. 

—

They get to the hospital May's at at just around 8 P.M., and Coach hug-attacks each and every one of them in the middle of the lobby by her delivery room, and Winston  _cries_ because he misses Coach so much and he can't believe he's about to be a  _dad_ , and then neither can Schmidt, and then the three of them are just crying in one big, six-legged ball in the middle of a quiet hospital.

Jess gets cookies from the vending machine and sits with her legs folded underneath her on the most uncomfortable chair in the world. 

Nick leans into her, and she didn't even know he was sitting there. "Can I have... cookie? Seriously, Jess, you trust bags of food that just say 'Cookie' on 'em?"

She shrugs and throws cookie into her mouth in one bite. "Well... Yeah..." She says, her mouth full, and then she holds the bag out to Nick. 

Schmidt is pacing around the lobby, and Cece grabs him by the arm and makes him sit down. "It's not your kid, babe. Relax."

"I'm in the running for Godfather, Cece," Schmidt claps his hands together and then takes a seat next to Cece. "It's  _basically_ my kid."

Winston laughs. " _I'm_ obviously gonna be the Godfather, man."

Cece levels a hand at Schmidt.

"Fine, but I'm still gonna love the kid, Winston," he says, and Cece wrinkles her nose and kisses him on the shoulder.

—

May gives birth to a six pound, ten ounce, nineteen-inches-long baby girl at 1:03 in the morning, and everyone's almost too tired to be happy for a second.

Until Coach comes out of the delivery room and into the lobby, and he's crying the exact way New Dads always cry in the movies, and all five of them run up to him and envelope him in this giant hug. 

"You did it," says Jess, and she does a little fist-pump, and Coach smooches her on the cheek.

"Yeah, I guess I did. Wanna see her?"

Schmidt swallows and almost looks horrified. "Is she - Is she  _clean_?"

"Dude!"

—

The baby is beautiful, as beautiful as someone who just exited a person a few minutes ago can be, and Coach cries (again) when he sees May with her. 

Everyone goes in at once, but Winston's the first one to go over to the hospital bed, peeking down at the baby. "Aww, she  _cute_! Good job, you two."

Cece and Schmidt ask to hold her, and Coach lets them, but, "Hold my kid wrong and I'll sabotage your wedding just for the hell of it, man!", and Schmidt's extra careful to hold her the way May tells him to.

Jess is scared to, because she and babies don't mix, but Nick says, "If you will, I will", and then Schmidt hands the baby over to her and she cradles her and almost cries at how tiny she is.

Nick takes a picture of that, of Jess and the baby and Jess's almost-tears, and before they all leave May's hospital room he makes it the background on his phone but doesn't tell anybody.

—

Cece and Schmidt and Winston nap in the car before they head back -- Yeah, that's a thing, six  _more_ days back, and everyone's groaning about it.

"Hungry?" Nick says, and he looks at Jess and she laughs because it's six in the morning. "Everything's open. No diners."

Jess  _has_ to say yes now. She nods and slips one of her hands in Nick's, instinctively grabbing onto his fingers and twisting her own around them. They stop at this little place a few blocks down from the hospital, and Nick orders them both pastries and coffee even though he hates coffee.

"It's nice to see our friends get their crap together," Jess says in between sips, and she's smiling into her coffee cup.

"You're next, Day," Nick teases, setting down his own coffee cup.

"Shut up, Nick."

"I mean it," he says, and then they toss their half-dranken coffee cups and take their pastries to-go.

They get back to the parking garage and Jess peeks in the car to make sure their friends are still asleep - they are -, and then she runs both of her hands down Nick's forearms and huffs. "Well, this is it, Miller."

"Hardly," he laughs. "We still have six more days of Schmidt's  _ridiculous_ CDs."

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna hail a cab to the airport, see ya'."

"Hey, no, you can't do that to me," he says, and then he tugs Jess in by the waist.

Jess leans and kisses him softly, not like the Ohio Rest Stop kiss, and she lets his lips linger on his for a little bit.

Nick breathes against Jess's mouth and finds her hand in the dark parking garage, wraps his fingers around her fingers.

She leans her back up against the car, and then Nick leans into her, and they're both better than okay.


End file.
